


Nineteen Years Later

by sal_black



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A revolution doesn´t have to be violent, Aromantic Asexual Harry Potter, Aromantic Harry Potter, Asexual Harry Potter, But I guess it´s possible to follow along?, Friendship, Gen, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Harry´s mind is an emotional rollercoaster, Healthy friendship, No Action, No Dialogue, also talking helps, and LGBTQ+ in general, and really really jumbled, it´s all kinda glossed over, really - Freeform, references to same-sex relationships, usually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:20:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29404005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sal_black/pseuds/sal_black
Summary: He´s learned to breathe underwater, because he would drown otherwise. He´s always drowning, in norms, expectations, ideals, hopes. The water has already managed to kill off a part of him, he thinks. It´s good, though. He wouldn´t manage it otherwise, anyways. When he was young, he liked to swim, to play with the water. But then it got too high, and there wasn´t enough air anymore.(Because a war doesn´t end with the spilled blood of the leader of one side. It never does.)This is just a short take on what I think should happen in the Wizarding World to really make it better than before the last battle, and also, Harry really does have many, many thoughts (which do not always line up)...
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Nineteen Years Later

**Author's Note:**

> As this is fanfiction, I obviously do not own Harry Potter or the world in which he lives.

“It doesn´t matter,” he says. “I´ll survive,” he says. “Go on,” he says. And they do. People flash around him. Colours rush to and fro. Sounds flicker in and out. The world is too grey and too colourful all at once. There´s too much noise, and too much silence. Too many words being spoken, and too many left unsaid. And there´s him, standing at the centre of the circle, wishing to be seen, wishing to be unseen, or invisible, or not even there at all. It´s strange, he muses as he stands, still as a statue, how you can be alive and not even exist at the same time.

He´s learned to breathe underwater, because he would drown otherwise. He´s always drowning, in norms, expectations, ideals, hopes. The water has already managed to kill off a part of him, he thinks. It´s good, though. He wouldn´t manage it otherwise, anyways. When he was young, he liked to swim, to play with the water. But then it got too high, and there wasn´t enough air anymore.

It´s not like he doesn´t want to care. He´s tried, multiple times, but something has to be wrong, missing. Because there is nothing. Not for him. There´s colour, there´s light, there´s dark, there´s shadow, but he doesn´t care. Not anymore. There´s noise, and silence. Words and tones and hidden meanings. And music.

He likes music. Music´s special. It just… is. Music helps. It helps shove aside the thoughts, the words, the opinions. It drowns them out, like the water does him, but it´s different. It´s free.

And the words are still there at the back of his head, but it doesn´t matter, because finally, finally, he can get quiet. There´s no “What are you _doing_?”, no “You shouldn´t do that!”, no “What is _wrong_ with you?!”, “How could you?!”, “Don´t you dare!”, “I´m disappointed in you You´re not worth it you´re not allowed _that´s disgusting just give up you´ll never be enoughstoptryingalreadyyou´realoser!_

…

Is he? He doesn´t know. He´s not sure he knows who he is, or what he isn´t, or how he´s not… something. Anything.

So he turns around, surveys the hustle and bustle around him, not seeing, not hearing. Never seeing, never hearing.

Never feeling.

*

(Because a war doesn´t end with the spilled blood of the leader of one side. It never does.)

*

Harry loves his friends – his _family_ – he really, really does. So why can´t he _stand_ to be around them anymore? They´ve gone through unimaginable things together, even braved death several times, and still they can´t seem to understand him. All of them are lovely, all of them _care_ , but that´s not what he needs. Ne needs some quiet, he needs _space dammit_ because it´s too full and he can´t _think_ , much less breathe. He can´t stand how they can´t see he´s not fine, he needs help, but he´s never learned to speak up for himself (a freak doesn´t need help, anyways) and he can´t stand himself because he expects them to know him without giving them the chance to know him. He can´t stand to be around them because they don´t seem to know what he needs and he hates that he doesn´t know what he wants, what he needs. It´s all too confusing, too much, and he doesn´t know what to do because his life´s never be so _complicated_ , there was always the bad guy, and the obvious solution to what to do next.

(Caring for someone doesn´t mean you know them. Thinking you know what is best doesn´t either.)

He´s never liked the public much, so it´s really no surprise that he hates it now. He hates their looks, their expectations, the fact that they believe they have a claim on his life just because he saved them. _That is not how it works!_ He hates how they are just as prejudiced as before the battle, how they have learnt nothing from it. He hates how the public already knows that in eighteen years he´ll be an auror, that he´ll be married to Ginny and have three kids with her, and that Ginny will stay home to care for them – having already given up her own job – while he makes the money. He hates how they know all this while he is just packing his trunk after the last Hogwarts Feast he will experience, getting ready to ride the boats one last time. He hates that, and he is not ashamed to admit that he might hate it even more than he did Umbridge in his darkest moments.

(Save them once and you´re their hero. Save them twice and you´re theirs.)

Sighing, he closes his trunk and puts it at the end of his bed. He´s already halfway out of the door when he remembers something, turns around, and opens his trunk once more. Carefully, he pulls out a silver, shimmering cloak and stuffs it in his pocket before leaving with one final glance around the room.

As he passes through the corridors of Hogwarts one last time, even more memories than normal threaten to overwhelm him. He runs his fingers over the walls lightly, remembering special places more or less fondly. Each spot tells its own story, and the more he thinks about it, the less sure he is about what to feel. On one hand, he hates to leave Hogwarts, to leave all his history behind. On the other, he´s not sure he could live through one more day of people laughing and running through the corridor where Fred died, of them just ignoring that at the very spot they are looking through their bag for some forgotten homework, Colin Creevey was petrified, or of them crying at the spot where he asked Luna to the Slug Club party. Every dust particle in this castle – no matter how small – has its own backstory, and he´s not sure he can handle it. He´s quite sure it´s not good for his mental state, which is fragile at best – not helped by the fact that he doesn´t go to one of the few mind healers existing in the Wizarding World because _you´re **Harry Potter** , if even you need a mind healer what is supposed to happen to the rest of the world?!_

He scoffs.

Yes, he´s Harry Potter, their hero, how could someone who is perfect like him need help?

But he´s also the boy who lost his parents as a toddler, who grew up in a cupboard under some stairs, who had to fight for his life (or soul) when he was eleven, twelve, thirteen fourteen fifteensixteenseventee- who died when he was seventeen, and somehow came back to life. He´s the twelve-year-old who everyone thought was evil, he´s the thirteen-year-old locked in a castle because someone wants to kill him (and why couldn´t they tell him that? he´s used to that, really, because there was always someone who wanted him dead, even before he was born), he´s the fifteen-year-old who has gone barmy and cannot be trusted with even holding up a door, and he´s the seventeen-year-old without whom they would all be dead, or slaves, and who people _always believed in, really, you have to believe me, I wanted to help you but I´m just a little insignificant woman what should I have done?_

(He was in fourth year. Every witch or wizard or wix living in Britain completed their owls, at least. But of course, what should they have done? They are only little insignificant adults with a wand and an arsenal of spells and knowledge of the Wizarding World for more than four years. They couldn´t have done anything of what he did.)

But of course, why should he need a mind healer?

(Maybe he´s gotten a little too cynical.)

*

As the scarlet train with big golden letters proclaiming it the “Hogwarts Express” rolls into the station, pandemonium breaks loose. Cameras flash, quills begin writing on parchment in front of the eager faces of their owners, and parents try to get to the front of the crowd without success. The train slows down, and with one last puff of smoke it comes to a stop. Slowly, as if purposefully teasing the onlookers, the doors begin to open.

A small girl with brown pigtails is the first to descent the stairs of the train, dragging a trunk that is as big as herself after her without so much as a strain showing on her face. Her face splits into a big smile as she sees two men clad in trousers and shirts on the end of the platform, a small child no older than four years between them, holding their hands as they stand on tiptoes looking for her. She sprints towards them, as oblivious to the masses of kids and teenagers spilling from the train behind her as the two men are to the wary glances thrown their way.

Meanwhile, the reporters´ gazes stay firmly on the doors of the train, watching each child leave with sharp eyes. It takes an hour for the platform to empty to a degree at which you can comfortably move around without risk of slamming into someone or something with every step. Only the reporters, with their quills poised and their photographers looking tired from holding up the cameras for the last hour are still as present as ever, having not yet made their big catch. Some have more text on their parchment than others, but none of them look even vaguely satisfied.

No one noticed how the crowds seemed to part just that little bit easier for the little girl with the brown pigtails, or how while the rest of the platform was too crowded to even turn around fully, her family had no problem hugging each other for their reunion, or how the portal into the muggle world seemed to flicker just that little bit longer when they left.

(After all, no one ever notices the small insignificant little freaks.)

*

He´s not fine, per se, but he´s better. He can´t help but think that maybe that´s what he needed, after years of being special. Maybe a break was the only thing saving him from going completely and utterly crazy. He´s still not completely sure if his family really does understand him, but at least they accept him for what he is, and what he isn´t. He´s not perfect, and they don´t expect him to be. He´s had enough of fighting the bad guys, and prefers to spend time with his godson, or write music, or draw and _why would you think you need to be an auror anyways – is that Hogwarts? Oh Harry, that´s **beautiful**!_ And maybe he prefers living in the small cottage with the cosy garden and _so many_ secret paths that he hasn´t tried yet around it to the modern flat that was gifted to him on Diagon Alley, and that´s great, because _its even faster than apparating to visit each other, this way._ Oh, and if he doesn´t want kids, or a partner, (ever), that´s fine too _as long as you bring this cake again next week, it´s delicious._

It wasn´t easy for him, to finally talk about what bothered him openly. It took awhile, and he´s pretty sure that the psychology lectures he visited while studying music at a muggle university helped immensely, but in the end it worked out. The war left scars on all of them, and for most of them they were deeper than they would like to admit.

And even if it was him who killed Voldemort, it wasn´t him who ended the war. It was Draco Malfoy, who played chess with a muggleborn first year who was bullied for being in Slytherin. It was Luna Lovegood, who wore a snake wrapped around a lion´s head for the first Quidditch game of the year. It was Anthony Goldstein, who was the first person in wizarding history who didn´t sit at their own house table for a meal. It was Ginny Weasley, who kissed Harry and Luna and Dean and Seamus and Hermione and Angelina after she won her first professional Quidditch match, and who had nothing _at all_ to do with the fact that people who looked at her weirdly afterwards suddenly sprouted bats from their noses. It was all of them, together, who ended the war, with strength and kindness and a _mission._

(Because while most people think a war can only be fought with swords, and ends with the spilled blood of their enemies, a pen has always been mightier than a sword. And they who hold that pen, and write that world, are the only one with the power to start or end a war for good.)

**THE END**


End file.
